Modi uses cricket to bowl over Sharif as India and Pakistan look to resume dialogue

Using the cricket World Cup as a tool, Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Friday reached out to his South Asian counterparts in Pakistan, Afghanistan, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka, wishing them good luck for the tournament as New Delhi indicated a thaw in the ties with Pakistan.

PM Modi greeted Pakistan Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif and personally informed him that he would send the Indian foreign secretary S. Jaishankar to Islamabad and other SAARC capitals.

It was still not known about the dates of Jaishankar’s visit to Pakistan.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Friday reached out to his South Asian counterparts in Pakistan, Afghanistan, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka, wishing them good luck for the cricket World Cup

The first hints of a possible resumption of ties with Islamabad were dropped when Pakistan high commissioner Abdul Basit met foreign secretary Jaishankar in New Delhi on Thursday.

Basit and Jaishankar had explored possibilities of resuming dialogue.

Basit’s meeting with Kashmiri separatist leaders last August on the eve of India-Pakistan foreign secretary-level dialogue had made New Delhi livid, forcing it to pull out of the talks.

Not only was the dialogue stalled, the two sides witnessed increased hostilities on the border with incessant firing, resulting in many casualties.

Officials said that cricket occupied most of the time during the telephonic conversation between Modi and Sharif.

The two acknowledged the spell that is cast by the game on the people in the sub-continent.

The talk took place ahead of the much-awaited encounter between India and Pakistan on Sunday.

Incidentally, Modi also had a talk with US President Barack Obama a day earlier and opposed India’s bid for a permanent seat at the UN Security Council.

After being ignored by India in the last six months, Islamabad has tried to raise the pitch on the Kashmir issue but the effort has not found any takers till now.

Recently, India’s Petroleum Minister Dharmendra Pradhan had called on Sharif on the sidelines of a multilateral meeting to finalise implementation of Turkmenistan-Afghanistan- Pakistan-India natural gas line project.

The meeting lasted for about 40 minutes.

A meeting also took place between Pakistan’s former national security adviser major general (retd.) Mahmud Ali Durrani and India’s NSA Ajit Doval. Durrani had also met foreign secretary Jaishankar amid indication that the two sides are moving forward on resumption of dialogue.